Smoke

By nigel bird

The Ramsay brothers are keen to move up in the world and get the hell out of town. They gather all their hopes in one basket and set up the Scottish Open dog-fighting tournament. In Leo they have the animal to win it. All they need to complete the plan is a fair wind.

Carlo Salvino returns home missing an arm and a leg. He’s keen to win back the affections of his teenage girlfriend and mother of his child. If he can take his revenge on the Ramsays, so much the better.

The Hooks, well they’re just a maladjusted family caught up in the middle of it all.

A tale of justice, injustice and misunderstanding, Smoke draws its inspiration from characters introduced in a short story first published by Crimespree Magazine and later in The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime Stories 8.

Praise for SMOKE:

“Grim, but really good.” —Ian Rankin, bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus novels

“Highly recommended.”—Thomas Pluck, author of Bad Boy Boogie

“It’s the real deal.” —Les Edgerton, author of Adrenline Junkie

“Smoke is reminiscent of Allan Guthrie’s Savage Night in the way it cleverly interweaves different strands of the story and its great mixture of colorful characters, absurdest humor and hard-boiled crime.” —Paul D Brazill, author of Last Year’s Man

“The pace of Smoke is first-class and a definition of noir itself. The characters are well-rounded, the dialogue top-drawer, the ending a satisfying conclusion to a cracking tale.” —Ian Ayris, author of the John Sissons thrillers

“This is a truly great piece of writing with characters that will live long in your mind.” —McDroll, author of Feeling It

“Grim, brutal, never pretty but laced with enough black humor and cautious optimism to elevate it above being a bleak and hopeless read.” —Col’s Criminal Library

“Gritty, working-class fiction from a hell of a writer.” —Matt Phillips, author of The Bad Kind of Lucky

“Horribly compulsive reading.” —Kath Middleton, author of The Sundowners

“Smoke is Brit Grit at its very finest. Think in terms of Layer Cake or Snatch.” —Darren Sant, author of Dark Voices

• Language: English
• Publisher: All Due Respect Books
• Release date: Dec 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370735082

Book preview

SMOKE

Nigel Bird

Copyright © 2017 by Nigel Bird

First All Due Respect Edition December 2018

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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an imprint of Down & Out Books

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by JT Lindroos

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Smoke

About the Author

Also by the Author

Preview from Welcome to HolyHell by Math Bird

Preview from Record Scratch by J.J. Hensley

Preview from The Bad Kind of Lucky by Matt Phillips

Jimmy

Sean Mulligan started it outside the school dining hall.

Jimmy was minding his own business when Sean jumped him, pinned him to the floor and tried to undo his trousers. Jimmy fended him off a couple of times. Managed to grab himself a handful of ginger hair and land a couple of blows to Sean’s acne-ridden face. Fighting back just made things worse.

Sean punched him. Caught the corner of his eye then smacked him on the nose. By the time his brain stopped fizzing the trousers had gone. So, had his boxers.

He lay surrounded by hysterical teenage girls, his tackle exposed, his dignity gone.

Tosser, he shouted, and cupped his hands over his privates.

The girls around him laughed and pointed. He thought they should have been old enough to know better. Hoped he would be when he reached their age.

Jimmy tasted iron in his mouth. Blood. Ran his tongue over his upper lip to check. It had the flavour of the bottom of the toy cars he played with when he was small.

He let his head fall to the floor. Might have left it there too if he hadn’t seen Fiona Taylor and her gang wandering his way.

Fiona was the girl all his mates fantasised about. Long legs, blond hair and always had the top buttons of her blouse undone. If she saw him without his trousers, he might as well give up all his dreams right then and there.

He stood. Thought. Took off his purple sweatshirt. Turned it upside down and stepped into it. Slid his skinny, white legs through the hole for his head and pulled it up so that it covered his cock.

He ran for the fire doors at the end of the corridor with all the grace of a drunken woman in a pencil skirt and stilettos rushing for the last bus home.

The stitches of his uniform shirt pulled and ripped with each step.

He headed for the high street as soon as he got outside.

Crossed the road without waiting for the green man.

The Edinburgh bus screeched on its brakes and the driver leaned out to scream obscenities.

Jimmy pirouetted majestically, raised his middle fingers and was off.

Horns beeped at him like injured animals, but he didn’t turn round once.

Moments later he was banging on the window of The Golden Fry.

Mrs Edgar looked up, straightened her back as far as she could manage. Rubbed her hip as she hobbled over to unlock the door. A smile broke on her face which momentarily hid all her wrinkles. Jesus. Ethel, will you look at those legs.

Ethel stopped mopping the floor. She’d been at the fake tan again. Looked like a pensioner poisoned by Orange Tango. Go and put on some breeks or we won’t be able to help ourselves, will we Bonnie?

Aye, it’s been a while since I saw such a fine figure of a man. Mrs Edgar winked and started over to the counter.

Jimmy was quick. A hop and a skip and he vaulted it like a gymnast.

Upstairs, he rooted around in his wardrobe. Decided on a pair of jeans. Felt better as soon as he slipped them on.

He looked into the mirror and pulled at his skin. The wound was like a new mouth, its lips moving without making a sound.

Sean Mulligan would to have to pay for what he’d done. Big time.

Jimmy went downstairs where the two ladies were waiting for him with the first aid kit.

Ethel dabbed on antiseptic with a ball of cotton wool. Jimmy flinched with every sting. Pictured Fiona Taylor undressing to take his mind from the pain.

Next morning was the first since starting high school that Jimmy arrived on time.

Facing up to the kids was like falling off a bike, his dad told him. You needed to jump into the saddle straight away or you lost your nerve.

A small group of first-years stood at the entrance, looking up.

Flying high over the school for everyone to see, where the Eco flag usually fluttered, Jimmy’s trousers. The bastard Mulligan had taken things too far.

Didn’t bother going in. Instead he hurried home and waited for the Integration Team to call to find out why he wasn’t in school, to go through all the same old crap of how he needed to keep his head down and do his work. Bad as the social workers, those guys.

At midnight he got out of bed already dressed and crept downstairs.

His dad slept in front of the telly. His head lolled to one side and a line of saliva connected his mouth to the faded blue of the mermaid tattoo on his forearm. It was difficult for Jimmy to imagine the hard man his dad was supposed to have been when he looked at the man before him—the quiff completely collapsed, the paunch and the open fly.

At least he was in no fit state to ask any questions. No need for Jimmy to explain why he was going out at such a time. Or to mention that he had a hammer and Stanley knife in his bag.

Out on the street a group of kids gathered at the roundel. Couldn’t tell who they were on account of the hoods. Jimmy pulled the cord in his own hood tight, blew into his hands and took a detour through the backyards.

Came out on Kennedy Street. Took out the piece of paper with the address just to make sure. Thirty-Six Grinton.

Jimmy crept around the back.

He tried all the windows and doors. Everything at ground level was locked.

He slung his bag onto his back and gave the drainpipe a test.

Satisfied, he took hold and pulled himself up.

When he got to the top, the pipe’s fixings loosened in the wall, damp brick dust rained down to the ground. No way he’d be able to leave the way he was going in. His stomach tingled when he looked down. The quicker he was in, the better.

He took the biggest screwdriver from his bag. Pushed it between the window and the frame.

The softwood gave way under the pressure.

A few quick jabs and the whole rotten mess was exposed. Council should be ashamed letting good property fall apart when people were paying money to live there.

Not that Jimmy was complaining.

One small push and it was open.

He slipped in through the window as if it were something he did every night of the week.

The place stank. Like the toilet hadn’t been flushed for a year and the potpourri was rotting vegetable.

He scanned the room with his torch. The shower curtain was covered in mould. Fungus grew where the walls met the ceiling.

Jimmy’s body responded to the spores in the air. His head itched, his eyes puffed up and his lungs struggled to fill.

He checked the bag for his inhaler.

Daft sod. Hadn’t thought about putting it in.

He took slow, deep breaths that wheezed into his chest. Washed out his eyes and took a sip of water until he felt he was back in control. Eased open the door and tiptoed into the hall.

It smelled stale. Body odour and urine just like the alley by the bookies.

Wanted to leave right then but remembered why he was there.

All he had to do was find the room, beat the crap out of Mulligan and get out in one piece.

The layout was the same as his house. Meant he should be able to find his way around in the darkness.

First bedroom on the left, Ramie Boyle had told him.

He walked to the top of the stairs, remembered the joke about leaving the landing light on and chuckled.

Then he stopped.

A door opened.

Light spilled onto Jimmy like he was on the stage.

A spectral figure appeared before him.

Beneath a full-length nightie, the old woman’s silhouette